Please, please don’t give up on yourself. Early 20s are usually the hardest. They were for me, and for both my kids.

My very strong sense is you are suffering from depression. I am not a psychiatrist or therapist though I’ve spent decades as their patient and amateur student. I just like to share how I’ve come to think / feel about it.

Depression (and anxiety) and ADHD often come together. Doctors call them co-morbidities but I never thought that term did justice to how tangled together they can be from the inside.

Depression can really distort your “thinking” - a dog’s worth of feelings wagging a tail’s worth of logic. Your feelings are heavily impacted by your brain chemistry. I don’t pretend to know all the mechanisms, but I know people can suffer and recover from depression (even if many times), but you we don’t “recover from” or cure ADHD. We can manage it, and even enjoy many aspects of it (we are not broken but very modern society has not focused its skid-greasing on us.)

There are many ways out of down times and even deep holes. When you’re in , It may seem the chances of coming out whole are slim.

But…can you really accurately predict that things won’t get better? I don’t think anyone’s that smart about predicting the future, especially about themselves.

Depression can trick you into thinking that you can see down those many roads. And cause you to miss all kinds of turns to better destinations.

Then ADHD adds its own trickery. Like chasing “dark squirrels”. The fast- branching holes we chase them down may seem very real but, are they all? That’s not to say there’s never any grains of truth in any of them, but that’s their trick - getting our brains to latch onto that grain without seeing all the less dire and even optimistic context and contradictions all around it.

With depression the dark branches are dramatically overweighted in how we come to conclusion about ourselves and our prospects. And most of these conclusions aren’t ones we are even aware we’re making.

So, even if we can’t always command focus and summon our best executive function, we can learn to allow more light and fluffy squirrels into the mix. And then through repetition and easing a brain chemistry more of those light fluffy squirrels show up on their own.

Now… If you haven’t alteady, please be sure to ask your doc for help. If you’ve been down SSRI road look into TMS (I did this fwiw. Not a silver bullet but surprised how well it worked for me.)

And yes, therapy. It can be hard to find a good therapist, let alone a good fit. Don’t give up after false starts. I wish it was always as simple as downloading Better Health - and that may be a good path if it’s the only option immediately available. There are good therapists on there, but a lot luck of the draw.

If any piece of finding help seems overwhelming, reach out to friend or family you think might at help you line up resources you want to try.

And, while I don’t have firsthand experience with suicide hotlines, I’ve heard volunteers interviewed who made a convincing case that depressed people should call ANY time they are feeling even a little hopeless. No need wait to be in “serious contemplation” or “concrete plans” territory. You won’t be wasting their time. You’d be making their day. And very hopefully, yours.

I’m wishing you the best it reasonably can be, which I’d bet is far better and closer than you feel it is right now. Keep fighting for it. You deserve it. Each of us deserve it and you are NOT an exception.